Sunday, April 1, 2012

Big Week?

Not exactly.

My week was good, but I didn't exactly kick the kind of pottery ass that I had hoped I would. Nonetheless, I managed to get at least 12 pots made and finished each day. Most of them were yunomis, plates, and small jars. Thank goodness for quotas.

Here are a few plates that show my current interest in various textures I can get from braided rope.

In the top image I used a pretty standard braided rope, not pictured. I like the way the overall pattern is created from the overlapping. The rope is rolled immediately after throwing, the clay is very soft and care is taken to roll with even pressure. I like the way the plate is ever so slightly deformed from the rolling.

With the middle plate I used a short section of cotton clothes line rope(shown). Curiously the overlapping pattern was concentric, more or less. The resulting pattern is a composite of many side-by-side rollings. If you look closely you can see each individual rolled "path".

In the bottom plate I used a small nylon rope (shown) that I saved from my push mower when I replace that starting rope late last summer. It's smallness resulted in a slow and tedious impression, which was not so easy to roll and I didn't enjoy, but in the end I liked the subtle pattern that resulted. This may be the best pattern for over-decoration as the impressions aren't very deep and won't interfere with the painting of floral motifs.

Every day I get more and more excited about the upcoming trip to Austin Texas and the Art of the Pot show there. I just found out that I will be showing with my buddy Peter Karner, as well as my Penland neighbor, Gwendolyn Yoppolo, and Deborah Scwartzkopf! Keith Kreeger will be our illustrious host at his studio in early May. Here's a link to the Art of the Pot web site.

Well that is a little of what I am working on these days. The coming week will be mostly free of packing and shipping, appointments, and other distractions, so I hope to really get a lot made. I hope to be able to share what happens here on the blog.